


Everyone's Running

by jawtitan (artyskepty)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Characters are their timeskip ages, Gen, I'll add more character tags as they come into it, Neo-Noir
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-04 23:49:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12178902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artyskepty/pseuds/jawtitan
Summary: It was hard not to think of the pistol discarded on the highway. Before that, of the steamy industrial complex, the bloodcurdling scream and the sound of a small, fragile body hitting the concrete floor, of the way all noise entered a vacuum and the rest of the world, for a moment, dropped dead. (an outrun-inspired modern AU. updates irregularly.)





	Everyone's Running

Somehow, to Bertholdt, The Dashboard seemed a lot safer than home tonight.

There were very few doorways that made him feel quite as relaxed as the swanky wooden double-doors, painted a pale minty green. Over the years, the paint had flaked and peeled in places, but it only served to add to the sense of familiarity that Bertholdt rarely felt. The entrance was bathed in a pool of yellow-ish light from its neon sign hanging above, which glinted against the rain-slick pavement. As he walked, his shoes echoes wetly against the ground, producing a sharp _tap_ that stood out plainly against the dead backdrop of the city. All other noise seemed somewhat muted as the nightlife began to settle, and it created the same muffling sensation that comes when snow falls in the dark.

He checked his watch. Morning was only a few hours away.

There was something incredibly eerie about being up at this time of night. It was nothing Bertholdt hadn't experienced before; after all, he’d never been much of a daytime person, but the scenes from the rest of his night played in his mind on a loop, more like a bad movie than real life - of the encounter, of flinging the pistol away, of parking up at home, of who was waiting for him - but all of it, everything that happened may as well have never existed. The night had thrown a blanket over it.

He took in a deep breath to try and settle the thumping sensation in his chest, and pushed both doors open, the mottled wood freezing against his warm hands. The grating neon yellow above him was flooded by the warm, dim light inside. This place was warm, languid, and always greeted him with open arms.

As expected by the hour, the hall was more or less empty, as its usual occupants had either returned home or crawled up to a room on the second floor. In place of the usual live music, a piano piece radio trickles in from a radio at the back of the room. The lights are dimmed, and in the further, darker corners, only lamps or candles stand on the tables, not illuminating much but adding to the lazy atmosphere. To his left, on one of the plush red sofas that fill the outer ring of the circular room, Bertholdt recognised the black hair and tattered red scarf of Mikasa Ackermann, tangled up in the arms of a girl he doesn't recognise.

He wondered what her partners thought about that scarf. The way in which Mikasa gave her heart to so many people but still proudly displayed such a symbol of devotion to another. Everyone who knew Mikasa knew what that scarf meant, even if the girl had never explained why or how she came about it. Bertholdt couldn't help but think that was why she went through so many partners.

Behind her, Connie and Sasha sit at a table, still wide awake but - by the look of it - barely conscious as they chatter animatedly (yet drunkenly) between two discarded bottles of vodka. Behind this pair, the bar: empty, but with the lights still on. Bertholdt’s gaze flicked right, where Zeke Jaeger snoozed on a chair backed against the wall, glasses half off his face, snoring heavily enough for Bertholdt to hear him over the music.

Finally, directly in front of him, at the back of the room, a brown-haired boy crouched on a stool on the bandstand, seemingly toying with his bass, though it was hard to tell with the way his long locks fell in his face as he hunched over. However, as Bertholdt stepped further into the room, Eren Jaeger seemed to notice his presence and lifted his head slightly in acknowledgment, still twanging playfully on his guitar.

“Hey, man,” Eren greeted him as he drew closer, abandoning his guitar to come stepping down the bandstand, hands in pockets. “It’s been a while. What, two, three weeks? It's not like you.”

“Uh, well,” Bertholdt started, rubbing the back of his neck, which was already prickling with sweat from the warm room. “I was taking a vacation.” he said. “Family. Business, too, a little. I asked Annie to let you know.”

“You know what she's like.” Eren snorted incredulously. He seemed genuinely annoyed by the insinuation. “Annie does as Annie will, as fuckin’ always.”

“...Did something happen between you two?” After what had happened back at his house, and now Eren’s uncharacteristic irritation, it would be somewhat relieving to Bertholdt if this was just another spat between his two friends.

“Nah,” Eren said, shaking his head in resignation. “Nah. She’s just so…” He complements his groan by throwing his hands up in the air in mock exasperation. “You’ve known her longer - you know what I mean, right? Why’re you asking, anyway?”

It was a question he didn’t feel one hundred percent comfortable with answering. Not only had he left his house with the sense that he shouldn’t be talking about the meeting, he was also conscious of the fact that any piece of information he let slip - any little bit - might get people asking questions, and that was something he didn’t want to deal with now, if ever. Bertholdt knew he could never hide it forever, but for now he wanted to do his best to keep it in the dark. Part of him wanted to curl up in bed and sleep for a year.

He conceded, sighing, pinching the bridge of his nose as he recalled the memory. “I spoke to Annie an hour ago. She was at my house when I got home.”

“Holy shit.” Eren breathed. “Does she give _any_ fucks? How’d she even get in?”

Bertholdt shrugged. “Beats me.” he said. They both knew that Annie could do a lot of things if she wanted to. If she could spring someone from a county jail, she could break into a college dropout’s cheap apartment.

“You’ve got to let me speak to her, Bertholdt, I can’t have her dragging everyone into her creepy bullshit.” He could tell that Eren was really working himself up now, the way his gaze began to defocus, his expressions intensifying. Perhaps that was why Eren hadn’t even attempted to ask him what Annie had wanted to talk to him about. It was a mild relief.

“So something _did_ happen between you.”

“She blocked my number six days ago!” The exclamation was loud enough to jerk Zeke awake, and his glasses finally fell off his face with a dull clatter. They both paused, and Eren shot his brother an irritated look - but his eyes were already closed again, head drooping. Eren continued, quieter this time, “She blocked my number and now she’s running around breaking into people’s houses. Did she take anything?”

“I, uh, didn’t actually stick around once she’d left. Felt kind of weird.”

“Ugh, of course you didn’t,” Eren brought his hand to his face in exasperation. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. You do you.” He started to storm back to the bandstand, and Bertholdt followed him, placing himself carefully on a discarded piano stool while Eren settled himself rather stormily on the wooden stool he’d been sitting on before, shaking his head in defeat.

“I don’t know why I bother with her, Bert. No matter what, I always feel way in over my head. Was she like this in high school?”

Bertholdt chuckled nervously. “Yeah, in a way. We were just kids then, though.”

Something about this tickled Eren, and he started to smile for the first time that night, nodding in agreement. “Totally,” he said. “Same with my lot. Funny how you were the only one to stay on the right side of the law, though, huh? Peer pressure crushes a lot of people.”

It was hard not to think of the pistol discarded on the highway. Before that, of the steamy industrial complex, the bloodcurdling scream and the sound of a small, fragile body hitting the concrete floor, of the way all noise entered a vacuum and the rest of the world, for a moment, dropped dead. It was hard to swallow the bile rising in his throat and regulate his breathing as he said, “Yeah, it is kinda funny.”

The spacious hall suddenly felt more oppressive than it ever had. “Maybe I should be getting back now, though,” Bertholdt almost spat out. “I should check if Annie really did fuck with anything.”

Eren eyed him with a resigned look, as if to say _‘please don’t leave me here’_ , but shrugged nonchalantly as if he didn’t actually care, hefting himself out of his seat. “You’ll let me borrow your phone so I can speak to her, though, right?”

Bertholdt, not particularly wanting to argue with him, simply nodded and pulled it out of his trouser pocket, handing it to Eren, who already had his hand out expectantly. “Thanks, man.” he said.

Honestly, it was easier to not question Eren and Annie’s odd relationship and just let them get on, otherwise they started making everyone else’s lives hell. The fact that Bertholdt was friends with both of them made for a very awkward dynamic, but they were good to him, especially in the recent months where he’d struggled to meet a rent that had until recently been paid by two, so he helped where he could. Even if that meant giving his cellphone to someone who was prone to breaking them.

Eren flipped the phone twice in his left hand, and just that was enough to set off Bertholdt’s anxiety. “If you get in touch with her,” He said quickly, partially just to get Eren to stop flipping the damn phone, “Just tell her that I thought about what she said and that’s she’s right. Please?”

Eren gave him a puzzled look, but nodded. “Sure, yeah.” he said. “What did she say to you, anyway?”

There it was. Bertholdt was just relieved that, technically, he could tell Eren a half-truth. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Eren, it was more that he’d rather no one know anything, not until the situation felt better, at the very least. He’d even rather Annie not know, but her skill in getting him to spill the truth was far greater than anyone else’s perception skills, and he’d needed _someone_ to confide in, just to relieve the pressure building inside of him.

After the acquittal, and after any news blew over, then he felt things would be okay to talk about.

“She was just reassuring me about the acquittal,” Bertholdt muttered, ensuring his tone sounded sheepish enough. “I was worried someone would try and step forward with new evidence.”

“Oh, shit, is that soon?” Eren exclaimed, palm to his head, dangerously close to waking up Zeke again. “Man, that’s great news, Bertholdt. I’m sure my brother’ll be glad to have his drummer back.”

Bertholdt laughed nervously. “Yeah. It’s been a rough couple of months.” Financially _and_ emotionally. It would be nice to say it would all be over in a matter of days, but every time he thought of that dark corner, pelted with rain, silhouette of a young man collapsed in a heap on the floor, he knew that it just wasn’t that simple. “Anyway.” He raised his hand in the small gesture of a wave goodbye.

“Yeah, see you later.” Eren said, sitting down and going back to his guitar. As he walked away, past sleeping Zeke, past Connie and Sasha (who lay with their heads on the table, groaning slightly), past Mikasa and her unfamiliar partner, Bertholdt looked back at Eren several times. The man was already hunched over his guitar, watching the strings as he twanged them absentmindedly. Despite the hour, he looked much more tired than usual, his usually dazzling sea-green eyes dulled as his eyes drooped, hair unwashed and tangled in places. Now was the time he would normally retire to bed for the day, and yet he remained as he had just before, sitting up as if keeping vigil over The Dashboard’s other occupants. As Bertholdt left through the double doors, he couldn’t help but wonder what had been keeping Eren up day and night.

It didn’t take long for the dingy building he called home to rise up behind a modest row of houses in his view. The Dashboard was only a fifteen minute walk away, which was part of the reason how he’d found the club all those years ago, back when he was still in highschool, and needed a weekend job at the bar. Back when Erwin Smith still ran lower management, before he took over the whole establishment. It was at The Dashboard where he first met Eren and Mikasa. For such a short few years, a lot had changed, he felt.

The rain from earlier was finally starting to dry up, and under the harsh streetlight, he could see vapour rising from the ground. It made the nighttime chill more tangible, somehow. He was relieved to see his motorcycle still chained up in the parking lot, alone in its corner, leaning against the railing. He quickly jogs back and forth to flip down the side stand - with Annie’s sudden appearance and his own panicked state of mind, he had forgotten before.

In the distance, Bertholdt could hear the loud yet fuzzy words of a couple arguing, and as he climbed the steps to his place he could see through the light of a passing window a television that had been left on, its viewer fast asleep. One hand nervously fiddled with the keys that rested in his pocket, and as he reached his door, he was relieved to slip the key in its lock and finally arrive home after days of turmoil.

He was half-expecting to see Annie again, hoodie and backpack and all, perched on the arm of his ratty sofa. Instead, everything was dark and quiet again. A solitary digital clock read ‘4:49AM’ in bold red letters, its mechanical clicking making seconds stretch out into minutes. It was here that Bertholdt let his tensions break and he sunk to the ground, groaning almost involuntarily. He couldn’t get it out of his head.

“Are you kidding me?” Annie had almost shouted at him barely an hour ago. “Bertholdt, if you shoot someone in the head and it’s reaches their brain, they don’t fucking scream. They’d be dead before they hit the floor. If he screamed when you shot him, _he’s not fucking dead_.”

He’d just wanted to stop him from going to the police. That’s what he’d told Annie. That’s was his _intention_. That’s all he’d wanted. It was as if - at that moment - he’d been blind to anything else.

“Then you wanted him dead?” She’d asked him.

“I wanted him _gone_ . I wanted him to stop. I never wanted to kill anyone.” This was how he’d replied, voice shaky and hoarse as panic ate at him, but even that was wrong. For a split second, Bertholdt _had_ wanted to pull that trigger and put an end to it. In his head, there’d been no other choice.

“Well, it’s done now,” She’d replied, her icy demeanour returning. “You fucked up. You left a young man to bleed to death in a back alley two states away. You’re just going to have to reap what you sowed.”

The thing was, he didn’t want to do anything. He got to his feet and stumbled to his room, one bed dirty and in disarray, the other one completely stripped of its sheets, gathering dust. Just after pulling off his jacket and tossing it onto the chair at his desk, Bertholdt collapsed into the first bed, pulling the tangled sheets around him in order to warm up. He was so tired. He just wanted to make it through the next few days, until the final court visit, until he could see his friend Reiner again and forget about what he had done to bring him back.

 

* * *

 

A few hundred miles away, in a formerly unremarkable corner of a large town’s industrial area, ambulances blared, filling the paths with blue and red light, as two paramedics usher a young man into the back of one of their vans. The rain still fell, but it had relented somewhat, and the rising vapour that had before made visibility difficult had started to dissipate.

The youngest of the paramedics, a diminutive blonde called Historia, had been mentally baulking at the sight as his stretcher was pulled into the back of the van where she stood. Half of his face was a bloodied mess, shards of bone lodges in places they shouldn’t have been. Blood still pulsed violently from what seemed to be where his eye had been, and she rushed to apply the appropriate pressure to the wound. It was a struggle, given the severity of the wound in comparison to her small hands, dainty yet well-trained.

“Gunshot to the face,” One of her colleagues commented. Historia nodded in response; there was nothing else something like this could be. “It would have had to been from a distance, low visibility…” He gestures to the rain outside as he says this.

“There’s a lot of bone fragments here, too,” She said solemnly. “It looks like it glanced the orbital bone and caused all this damage that way.”

Her colleague peered over the man’s wound quizzically, and then nodded in approval. “That’s right. You’ve been doing your reading.”

Historia smiled a little bit at the praise. Her college classes had been cancelled that week, so she’d been able to devote more time to her training material.

However, the van had barely started moving when the man on the stretcher stirred, and Historia’s smile disappeared quickly. She leaned in, hands still on the wound as he moved his lips, trying to speak.

“Please don’t speak, sir.” Historia urged, not entirely sure how conscious he was, but hoping he understood. “You’re injured and need rest.”

Not heeding her, grimacing from the intense pain he must be feeling, he managed to shakily whisper, “Can I… speak… Historia Reiss.” She nearly blanched at the mention of her name and her increasing familiarity with the man’s features. Wasn’t he the psychology student who’d helped her find a library book in her first week of college? Didn’t she see him at a party once, back when his hair was still long and he looked more fifteen than nineteen?

“That’s my name, sir.” She spoke, lowering her voice to a murmur, keeping her cool as best she could, as much as she could. “Now, please rest.”

The man smiled distantly, and stuttered more words out, pausing every few seconds as waves of pain contorted his features, or what remained of them. “Please… don’t let them replace my eye… those cybernetics. Nothing, Historia. Don’t let them.”

His speech was garbled, but Historia listened intently, nodding shakily. Her voice was down to a nervous whisper as she said, “Why is that, sir?”

“I - need these scars.” Was all he uttered as his remaining blue eye defocused, then closed fully as he lapsed back into fitful unconsciousness. The scream of sirens sliced through the night.

**Author's Note:**

> Got my creative juices flowing and finished this in three days. I wish I was this productive when writing my own novel, haha. Please comment and tell me your thoughts if you liked it! I'm still very steadily working out the plot and I'd definitely appreciate any suggestions.


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